The Transformative Nature of Slavery

A particularly haunting aspect of Walter Johnson's Soul by Soul is the authors mention of the transformative nature of slavery for white's. Through the slave market white people were able to craft their image and advance their socioeconomic status through procuring slaves. The peculiar institution lay at the center of Southern society, therefore Southern whites viewed slavery and the act of purchasing slaves as a way to manifest their hopes and aspirations. “They dreamed of beating and healing and sleeping with slaves; sometimes they even dreamed that their slaves would love them. They imagined who they could be by thinking about whom they could buy” (Johnson,79.) It is challenging to grapple with the notion that slavery was so entwined within Southern culture that slave holders constructed these fantasy-like notions surrounding the souls they claimed as property and the transformative nature it would have upon them; people began to define themselves by who they could buy. The transformative nature of the institution of slavery bolsters the immense investment in the institution, slavery was woven into the very fabric of Southern society--to be a slave master was comprable to ascending to a higher level of importance, men were defined by the number of bodies they held as property.
A key component of the transformative nature of slavery was the performance of racial distinctions, and the affirmation of white supremacy. Slavery was an institution that could be bent a shaped to ones will, whites used slavery to support claims that blacks were inferior to whites and establish themselves as the 'superior' race. Slavery was not only transformative to the white individual, it was always essential in shaping and transforming Southern society. The perimeters of femininity and masculinity were also mutually enforced for whites by the peculiar institution. The image of the Southern Belle and the galant Southern gentlemen was forged through the socioeconomic ladder climbing that was incited by the institution--the concept of Southern hospitality was pervayed by slavery because it was the enslaved who were exploited to create this image of Southern plantations being the epitome of refinement. The shadow of slavery hung over every facet of white individuals lives. The immense investment Southern whites had within the peculiar institution and the pervasive nature of slavery was transformative in itself.
Slavery was not solely transformative for whites, the institution left an indelible mark upon black culture as well that bleeds into the contemporary moment. Slavery was a coercive institution, slaves were never stripped completely of personal agency. Within the confines of the peculiar institution enslaved individuals were able to create community and culture through a shared struggle to assert their humanity and rebel against the notion that they were objects or property. The institution was also transformative to free blacks as well, the threat of enslavement always loomed on the horizon, therefore; they created ways in which to survive and even thrive within a society in which they were viewed as second class citizens at best. However; through collective struggle African American's were able to transform their inescapable reality into a community and forge a culture unique to African American's while doing so.